No matter how much of a master wordsmith Shakespeare is, there is nothing quite like seeing a play as it is intended to be: in live performance.

The RSC performance of The Winter’s Tale in Stratford was no exception as we witnessed the coming to life of a play, which up until yesterday we had only imagined in our heads and seen in rather two-dimensional video form. Prior to the performance we had several theories about how Shakespeare’s most hilarious stage direction (‘exit pursued by bear’) would be executed, but none of them were even close as an impressive oversized half-puppet bear devoured poor Antigonus at the end of Act Three. The bear was probably the pinnacle of the violence and, after witnessing ‘jealous tyrant’ Leontes’ descent into madness, the play thankfully shifts from winter to summer, with the much needed ‘sheep shearing festival’- which was complete with fertility dance, joy and good-old romance.
 

Suffice to say a QM trip would not be quite complete without trying to spot at least one famous person, this time it proved to be the actor Sam Troughton, also known as ‘Mutch’ from Robin Hood, making his way from back stage to the legendary ‘Dirty Duck’ pub. The enjoyment of the performance by the English lit and drama groups proved that the magic of the age-old play was, like the Queen Hermione, far from dead, even if a more muted interpretation of Leontes prompted some slightly mixed reviews from QM.

--Rosie Gillett, UVI